The English Present
by Anna Rousseau
Summary: A short Christmas story, what is Corday so interested in?


Title: 'The English Present'  
Author: Anna Rousseau annadelamico@yahoo.co.uk  
Genre: EC Humour/Short Christmas Story  
Parts: 1/1  
Rating: U  
Set: Season 6   
Summary: What sort of Christmas present from England has Elizabeth Corday missing her consults?  
Archive: Feel free, just tell me where.  
Disclaimer: Elizabeth Corday and Dr. Dave Malucci unfortunately don't belong to me neither does Er which belongs to Warner Brothers. To my friend's great distress, the other celebrity mentioned doesn't belong to her, but to his wife and the BBC  
Plug: If you haven't already - check out Randi's Fanfic Disk on Yahoo!Clubs run by myself and fellow ER writer Carrie Verkman.  
  
Notes:  
This was in response to a Fanfiction challenge set by my friend Becki who wanted to see all her following favourite things in a piece of ER fic. Be warned her taste is unique!  
  
Chocolate  
*Laurence Llwelyn-Bowen (see notes at end)  
*'Changing Rooms' (ditto)  
*Turquoise Aliens  
*Daphne & Celeste  
*Christmas  
  
  
  
'THE ENGLISH PRESENT'  
=====================  
  
  
Sinking down into the poorly sprung sofa cushions of the ER's staff lounge, Elizabeth Corday breathed a sigh of exhausted relief. A ghoulish six hour performance of cardio-vascular theatrics with the ever-charming 'Rocket' Romano had left her drained of all the energy the was left with after the graveyeard shift. Corday felt that her perfect Christmas with Mark had already been ruined.  
  
She glanced at her watch.  
  
By this time, the turkey should be going in the oven (with bacon on top, whether he liked it or not) and the icing applied to the fruit cake. Her stomach growled like a ravenous lion, but for now she'd just have to be content with what ever Doc Magoo had to offer.   
  
Burger?   
  
Pizza?  
  
Cheesecake?  
  
Corday's eyes travelled across the lounge, and settled in a predatory way on a box of chocolate-dipped doughnuts, balanced on top of the microwave. Quite miraculously, she quickly found the strength to move herself to the opposite side of the room. Beside the teasingly open container was a note scribbled on a corner of an abdominal T-Sheet. She recognised the traditional illegible physician's scrawl as being Dave Malucci's, third year resident-pain-in-the-ass.  
  
  
"KEeP ofF - or i'M HUNtINg YoU DOwn wiTh aN lP KiT"  
  
  
Corday chuckled in spite of herself before reading the post-script.  
  
  
"iT WON't bE pReTTy!!!!!"  
  
  
He eyebrows raised briefly before she bit into the velvet layers of chocolate, grease and sugar, enjoying the privilege of being able to pull rank. Soon that doughnut was joined by a few others, and before Corday knew it, the box was a gaping hole of nothingness. If Dave came to her for an explanation, she decided to tell him that the doughnuts had been abducted by cholesterol-loving turquoise aliens on a sugar kick before they took over the world.  
  
Halfway through imagining what smart-ass comeback Dave would conjure up, Corday saw a brown padded envelope addressed to her on the counter she was leaning on. It was stamped in the corner with a British postal mark.  
  
Curious, she cautiously tore at the package until she saw the contents. She jumped up and held it in her hands, like it was a delicate vase that could break at any moment. The surgeon's face lit up like the lights that lined the halls of County's busiest floor.  
  
The sight of her greatest passion, on the front of the shiny, heavy book that she had lost all hope of finding in the States converted her tired demeanour into a giddy one. She gazed at the image on the cover. The long chestnut hair flowing softly over a seductively open-necked shirt, leading to a cuff which half covered a powerful left her transfixed.  
  
Melded to the spot.  
  
Her fingers played over the surface of the book, soothed by the presence of her personal bible. This book contained everything a respectable English woman needed to know about her favourite topic. DIY.  
  
Suddenly the door from the corridor burst open and in strolled Dave, brushing snow off his jacket, freezing from a venture into the crystal-cold Chicago Christmas morning.  
  
"Hey!" Dave started to complain about the disappearance of his doughnuts, but instead stopped when he caught a glimpse of what the Associate Chief of Surgery was admiring. "Wow, man - that chick's butch!"  
  
Corday glared and snapped at him as viciously as a piranha just on a feeding frenzy. "He's not a woman, Malucci!"  
  
Dave shrugged and looked at her as if she had just started reciting Daphne & Celeste lyrics to him. "Who the HELL is this 'guy', anyway?"  
  
She brandished the book in front of him. "What! Don't tell me you don't know who Laurence is?"   
He read the title.  
  
"CHANGING ROOMS: £500, 48hrs & ME" by Laurence Llwelyn Bowen, Interior Designer Extrodinaire  
  
"Eh?"  
  
Corday sighed and flung open her locker, which was covered, every square inch with the smiling image of this man - a candle burned softly in the corner, topping off the shrine.   
  
"Dave, this man is a god - who else is as talented as him?"  
  
Dave caught sight of a picture of a Laurenc make-over, a living room that looked like a zebra-striped hooker's bedroom...not that he knew what they looked like.  
  
He looked at Corday's grin, then the book, and back to Corday.  
  
"Oh, wait here, I'll go get Dr. Weaver for you."  
  
With that, Corday was left alone with her book, enveloped in her arms. She barely heard Dave's cries for help.  
  
"Chief, Dr. Corday's been mainlining bourbon in the lounge."  
  
"What? What is it with the doctors here?"  
  
  
  
THE END  
reply to annadelamico@yahoo.com  
or fanfiction.net  
or alt.tv.er.creative  
  
  
Background Info:   
  
For all you without Auntie Beeb (BBC America to all you Yanks), the programme in this piece is 'Changing Rooms', this is a DIY show where two couples swap houses for the weekend an have £500, a designer and a handyman ('Handy Andy') to makeover a room. The designer mentioned is Laurence Llwelyn-Bowen, he's the one who usually ends up making someone's lounge look like a brothel and he has long layered hair that seems to be as well cared for as Jennifer Aniston's. He usually paints in leather trousers and shirts with massive Renaissance cuffs.  
  



End file.
